Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Join authors Susan Sloate and Kevin Finn on their Virtual
Book Tour for Forward
to Camelot, presented by
Goddess Fish Promotions, from November 4 – November 29, 2013. Susan and Kevin
will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour
and theirSuper Book Blast Tour.
Please be sure to leave your email address
with your comment, in case you are the winner.
You can follow the rest of their tour here, the more stops you visit, the better your odds of winning.

What Does The JFK Legacy Mean to Me?

I suppose I could take the
easy way and tell you JFK’s legacy stands for hope, as it does for many
people. The promise of youth and what
might have been...there’s always a strong lure for the road not taken.

What I keep from the JFK years is a trail of character. That may seem odd, given the many
indiscretions and controversies surrounding his presidency, but the one thing
that always stood out about JFK was character.
From the first time I read John F. Kennedy & PT 109 when I was nine
years old, I knew a man who had the courage to lead, through thick and thin, to
the detriment of his own well being. Without knowing his life of privilege, I
knew I wanted to be like him.

John F. Kennedy was a leader, a man who stood up for what he
believed in and made others stand up for it, too. He certainly had his flaws as both a person
and a leader, but his character always managed to shine through in the most
difficult of situations. A plethora of
ailments including Addison’s disease threatened to kill or cripple him several
times throughout his life, forcing him
to self-administer daily, painful injections to control his Addison’s.
Physically unfit by any medical standard, Kennedy lied his way into the Navy
and then combat duty (with his father, Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, exerting his
influence where necessary), but that’s where privilege ended. Kennedy engaged in front-line combat missions
and fire fights with the enemy that were very real, very dangerous, and often
required a reckless disregard for one’s own life to save others. Few men exemplify courage and leadership the
way Kennedy did after his patrol boat was rammed and sunk in the middle of the
vast Pacific one dark August night during World War II. Nearly disabled himself with a bad back
re-injured in the crash, Kennedy swam miles to an island towing a more
seriously injured crewman with the straps of a lifejacket between his
teeth.

Devoid of food and fresh water, in the midst of enemy
territory, a battered Kennedy swam out into shark-infested waters each night
trying to flag down any passing American ships, to no avail. Yet he never gave up hope and never let his
men give up, either, rescued six harrowing days after being shipwrecked, more
important than a medal, JFK earned the eternal respect of his men and the rest
of the Navy.

The valuable lesson President Kennedy learned from his blunder
with the Bay of Pigs fiasco perhaps saved the world a year later. No leader has
ever dealt with the imminent prospect of an active nuclear war as he did, and
his resolve to peaceful convictions beat back the overzealous call to military
action that would’ve led to global obliteration. It took Jack Kennedy more courage and
character to not push the button than it did to push it at the behest of all
his best ‘advisors’. Kennedy had the
foresight to pass the torch of his beliefs to the youth of the times,
establishing the Peace Corps as global ambassadors of good will. Steadfast in his support of the Civil Rights
movement, standing up to defiant governors who would deny students the basic
right to education, JFK proved that doing the right thing isn’t always the
popular thing.

Jack Kennedy learned to be his own man, rising beyond the
notorious shadow of his father’s backhanded, reprehensible ways. He wasn’t a
saint, but he had a regard for people, for their rights and beliefs. Imagine
how differently the Sixties take shape with JFK standing beside Martin Luther
King at the forefront of the Civil Rights movements. Could the Women’s Rights
Movement and eventually the breakup of the Soviet Communist Bloc have found
smoother, quicker paths through Kennedy leadership? I wonder how JFK would’ve
addressed the societal hot-topics of today, affordable health care and equal
rights & marriage for gay and lesbian citizens?

John F. Kennedy challenged us as a leader and a man, asked us
to redefine ourselves and what we had to offer the world. More importantly, he showed us how to do
it. It’s what great leaders do. It’s what character is built on.

Forward
to Camelot: 50th Anniversary Edition

By Susan
Sloate and Kevin Finn

Publisher: Drake Valley Press

Release Date: August 29, 2013

Genre: Time Travel/Political Thriller

Length: 436 Pages

ISBN: 978-1935970149

ASIN: B00EVWYDG0

Add to Goodreads

About the book:

WHERE WERE YOU THE DAY KENNEDY WAS SAVED?

On the 50th anniversary of the JFK assassination comes a new
edition of the extraordinary time-travel thriller first published in 2003 with
a new Afterword from the authors.

On November 22, 1963, just hours after President Kennedy’s
assassination, Lyndon Johnson was sworn in as President aboard Air Force One
using JFK’s own Bible. Immediately afterward, the Bible disappeared. It has
never been recovered. Today, its value would be beyond price.

In the year 2000, actress Cady Cuyler is recruited to return to
1963 for this Bible—while also discovering why her father disappeared in the
same city, on the same tragic day. Finding frightening links between them will
lead Cady to a far more perilous mission: to somehow prevent the President’s
murder, with one unlikely ally: an ex-Marine named Lee Harvey Oswald.

Forward to Camelot: 50th Anniversary Edition brings together an
unlikely trio: a gallant president, the young patriot who risks his own life to
save him, and the woman who knows their future, who is desperate to save them
both.

I was alone, lying outside on a
patch of soft grass, and it was growing dark.

My head felt like it was about to
split right open.

My eyes were sore.

My body felt bruised and banged up,
as though I’d fallen down a flight of stairs and hit a number of hard objects
along the way.

Altogether, I had had better days.

For a moment, I couldn’t think what
I was doing here… wherever here was.

It came to me slowly, as I lay
there, that I had stepped through John’s DNA detector, that I’d sensed a flash
of light behind me and heard the tapping of keys on his keyboard. And now… I
was alone and outdoors. I could feel a fresh evening breeze on my face and hear
the rustle of trees above me.

Where was I? And more important,
when was I?

I took a deep breath, braced my
hands against the grass, and pushed myself into a sitting position. My head hurt
worse when I forced myself to open my eyes.

I sat on a slope of lawn facing a
curved street leading down under a railroad overpass. To my left I saw a blaze
of light and a cluster of taller buildings. In the distance to the right, I
could see dingy, weary-looking freight cars sitting still on a railroad track.
Directly behind me, in the darkening sky, I saw the outline of a
classic-looking curved pergola. Behind that, on the corner, was an old-looking
faded brick building. Wherever I was, it was a city.

I sat still for a moment, gathering
my strength and assessing my condition. I did feel pretty beat up, as John had
theorized I would. But it wasn’t really debilitating; I suspected I’d feel a
lot better as soon as I had a good meal and a decent night’s sleep.

I lifted my eyes, painfully. The
light hurt.

My legs, when I tested them, were
sore but would hold me, so after a moment I got to my feet. I walked cautiously
down the slope of lawn toward the street. I stopped on the sidewalk; cars
continued to flow past.

Big cars. Unusually big cars. Some
with… I peered at them… tailfins?

I turned to look behind me at the
lawn I’d lain on.

… And knew, suddenly, where I was.

I was in Dallas. There could be no
doubt about it… because the sloping lawn I’d been lying on was known in my
world as the Grassy Knoll, and the entire pretty little park was better known
as Dealey Plaza.

The place where Kennedy had been
shot.

… Which meant that the seven-story,
faded-brick building on the right could only be the Texas School Book
Depository, the clock on the Hertz Rent-A-Car sign on the roof telling me it
was 6:40 p.m. The curved street in front of me was Elm Street.

John’s program had transported me to
precisely where he said it would. The question was… had he also transported me
to another time? To the right time?

AUTHOR Bios
and Links:

SUSAN SLOATE is the author of 20
previous books, including the recent bestseller Stealing Fire and Realizing You
(with Ron Doades), for which she invented a new genre: the self-help novel. The
original 2003 edition of Forward to Camelot became a #6 Amazon bestseller, took
honors in three literary competitions and was optioned by a Hollywood company
for film production.

Susan
has also written young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including the children’s
biography Ray Charles: Find Another Way!, which won the silver medal in the
2007 Children’s Moonbeam Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz
led to her 2009 appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest on The History
Channel. Amelia Earhart: Challenging the Skies is a perennial young-adult
Amazon bestseller. She has also been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, managed
two recent political campaigns and founded an author’s festival in her hometown
outside Charleston, SC.

After
beginning his career as a television news and sports writer-producer, KEVIN FINN moved on to screenwriting
and has authored more than a dozen screenplays. He is a freelance script
analyst and has worked for the prestigious American Film Institute Writer’s
Workshop Program. He now produces promotional trailers, independent film
projects including the 2012 documentary SETTING THE STAGE: BEHIND THE SCENES
WITH THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, and local content for Princeton Community
Television.

Don't forget to leave a comment for Susan or Kevin as they will be awarding a $25 Amazon GC to a randomly drawn commenter during this tour and theirSuper Book Blast Tour. Please be sure to leave your email address with your comment, in case you are the winner. You can follow the rest of their tour here, the more stops you visit, the better your odds of winning.

I enjoy history and JFK has always been an interesting historical figure to me. I did a paper on his death in college. This book seems to put an interesting twist on the event. I enjoyed the excerpt. Thanks for sharing :)Lori

I would like to thank both of you for this exciting novel about President Kennedy, especially now on the 50th anniversary of his death. I really enjoyed reading FORWARD TO CAMELOT and only wish it was true and he had been saved. I loved the fast moving action and the surprising twists. Best time travel novel I have read on this subject, and I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys a great read.

Thank YOU, Mary Lou! Nothing makes us happier than hearing comments like this from our readers! I'm also happy you found the book now, given the ENORMOUS outpouring of new books on the subject--the latest one this morning (and this totally cracked me up) said that JFK was KILLED BY MISTAKE, that the real target was John Connally, because Oswald (the crazy lone nut) was furious that his Marine discharge had been downgraded to dishonorable, and when he asked Connally as the governor for help, Connally ignored him. I think that's my favorite new this-is-why-Oswald-did-it theory!

Thanks, Andra Lyn! That was Kevin's post; he has extensive knowledge about PT-109 (which we do mention in CAMELOT). It IS a great story, and reminds us that JFK was not the lightweight his critics have tried to tell us he was. Research matters!

Victoria - There really is a lot people don't about JFK that's very positive. He was a much better man than the media's let us know in the last few years (when they seemed intent on treating him with contempt). Whether or not he was a great president--and he wasn't in office long enough for a definitive answer--he did leave us way too soon.

Catherine Lee - Stephen King took a completely different tack than we did. We wrote about a conspiracy (something that to my knowledge no other JFK time-travel novel has done). He wrote about the lone-nut assassin, which our research made clear was not possible. But I'd be very interested to know your response when you've read ours - I think it might surprise you!

Wow, this is great. I'm sorry I am just now finding out about this book. I've always had a fascination with JFK even though I was a small child when he was assassinated. The first thing I remember about JFK assassination was finding and reading, looking at pictures in Life Magazine and a few other magazines that my Mother had bought. After that, I always had a fascination with JFK and the Kennedy family. Looking forward to reading this book. Thank you for the chance to win this giveaway and please enter my name.Barbara Thompsonbarbmaci61(at)yahoo(dot)com

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